Justices sided with the U.S. government Thursday in a dispute over water allocation from the Colorado River, which has reached critical levels in recent years.
, argued that it was"not the judiciary's role to rewrite and update" the treaty in question, which established the Navajo Reservation.
"Here, while the 1868 treaty 'set apart' a reservation for the 'use and occupation of the Navajo tribe' ... it contains no language imposing a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe," Kavanaugh wrote."Notably, the 1868 treaty did impose a number of specific duties on the United States, but the treaty said nothing about any affirmative duty for the United States to secure water.
However, dissenting justices claimed that the Navajo Nation's requests were"far more modest" than trying to compel the government to take affirmative steps. Justice , a conservative, joined the high court's three liberal judges on Thursday, writing in the dissenting opinion that"the Navajo have a simple ask: They want the United States to identify the water rights it holds for them."to find out what water rights the United States holds for them have produced an experience familiar to any American who has spent time at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
In 2021, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Navajo Nation could sue the government over failing to carry out its duties. The Supreme Court's decision considered separate appeals filed by both the federal government and the states of Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, alongside several water districts in California that draw from the river.
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